Dems have slight lead in Iowa Senate race

MARION, Iowa — A Linn County race that could change the balance
of power in the Iowa Senate appears to be going down to the
wire.

Linn County voters will go to the polls today to fill the
vacancy in Iowa Senate 18, which wraps around northern and western
Linn County.

Although a poll completed over the weekend suggests Senate
Democrats will retain a 26-24 slight advantage, both Republican
Cindy Golding and Democrat Liz Mathis continued knocking on doors
and meeting with voters Monday.

For Golding, that included a rally with the Family Research
Council Action’s Values Voters Bus Tour and the National
Organization for Marriage where she called on voters to make their
decision on a “range of issues” rather than any one issue.

Golding and Mathis have insisted the election of a replacement
to Marion Democrat Swati Dandekar is not a referendum on same-sex
marriage — an issue that has been bottled up in the Iowa
Senate.

“I want to encourage voters ‘Don’t vote on a single issue, vote
on all of those other values that are important to you that make
Iowa as great as it has been and as great as it can be in the
future,’” Golding said Monday.

“It is not a single issue, it is one of several issues that
brings us together to change this state,” she said.

While Golding supports allowing Iowans to vote on a
constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Mathis supports
the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision striking down a state ban on
same-sex marriage.

Mathis and Golding, both from Cedar Rapids, have spent most of
their time talking about jobs creation, creating a better business
environment and improving education in Iowa.

The Public Policy Poll showing Mathis with a 52 percent to 46
percent lead — with a 3.3 percent margin of error — found that
same-sex marriage was the No. 1 issue.

While Golding was getting support from the Family Research
Council Action and NOM, labor was working overtime for Mathis. A
couple of days after Dandekar resigned to take a seat on the Iowa
Utilities Board, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council
Bluffs, rallied union members by saying a Democratic majority was
needed to prevent a replay of Wisconsin Republicans’ attempts to
strip public employees’ collective bargaining rights.

“We are Wisconsin,” Gronstal said.

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Mathis downplayed that, but the Iowa Federation of Labor has
repeated that sentiment in calling on union members to volunteer
for her campaign.

“We’re counting on union members to win this race,” Iowa
Federation President Ken Sagar said in a union newsletter Sunday.
“The stakes are very high. The future of collective bargaining
rights in Iowa will likely come down to the state Senate. This race
could decide if Iowa politicians will launch attacks like we’ve
seen in Ohio and Wisconsin.”

On Monday, Gov. Terry Branstad seemed to agree with the findings
of the poll.

“I think it’s an uphill battle for the Republicans to win that
seat,” he said at his weekly news conference. That’s because Mathis
has an advantage because of her many years as an eastern Iowa
television anchorwoman, he said, and her campaign is outspending
Golding.

There’s a third candidate in the race. Constitution Party
candidate Jon Tack of Hiawatha is a senior lab tech at Schneider
Electric in Cedar Rapids. He’s a high school graduate who received
technical and leadership training during his 14-year Navy
career.